A hyperlink is a reference to data that a user can directly follow. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. A hyperlink may link to another place in the same document or to an entirely different document. Typically, a user will click on a hyperlink, which may take the form of a picture or text, to follow the link. Hyperlinks are an essential ingredient to hypertext systems, including the World Wide Web. Oftentimes, a hyperlink links to another web page. Hyperlinks may be created and inserted into a variety of documents and pages, such as web pages, emails, or word processing documents. A hyperlink consists of two parts; first, the full address of the external or internal link and second, the text or image that is displayed on the page or document upon which the hyperlink resides. When a hyperlink is displayed as text within a page or document, the text of the hyperlink often is descriptive of the webpage to which it links. Alternatively, hyperlink text may be displayed as the uniform resource locator (URL) of the web page to which it links.
The hypertext system is a type of database system in which objects can be linked to each other. When a user selects an object, they can see other objects that are linked to it. A user can move from one object to another even though they may have different forms. Hypertext systems are useful for organizing and browsing through large databases that consist of disparate types of information.
A web search engine is a software system that is designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. Oftentimes, users access web search engines through the use of a web browser. A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. Many commercial web browsers include the capability to track and store Internet browsing history.